Our Team

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As President & CEO of NAI, Leigh Freund leads the organization’s growth and helps set the agenda and strategic priorities. Leigh joined NAI in 2015 after an eleven-year career at AOL Inc., where she served as vice president & chief counsel for global public policy.

Leigh brings more than a decade of substantive expertise in privacy, advertising, and public policy in the digital sector to her work at NAI. She has first-hand knowledge of the tremendous contributions third parties have made in the digital advertising space and she is a passionate believer in strong self-regulation.

During her time at AOL, Leigh led the company’s public policy efforts and was a leading voice on global digital and technology policy. Prior to that role, Leigh headed up the AOL advertising legal team and worked with AOL’s privacy team to promote and develop responsible use and collection of data, and ensure compliance with the industry's self-regulatory programs.

Before joining AOL in 2004, Leigh worked at K&L Gates and on Capitol Hill with Rep. Fred Upton from her home state of Michigan.

Leigh holds an undergraduate degree in political science from Kalamazoo College and a J.D. from Georgetown University. She is an active participant in several industry organizations devoted to compliance with key regulatory initiatives and principles, including the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) and Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA).

Anthony Matyjaszewski

Vice President, Compliance and Membership

As Vice President, Compliance and Membership, Anthony Matyjaszewski leads the NAI team in conducting the NAI's annual compliance reviews of member companies, and manages the team in reviews and onboarding of new members. Anthony also oversees the drafting of updates to the NAI Code of Conduct and Guidance Documents, along with the NAI Board of Directors, culminating most recently in the publication of the 2018 NAI Code of Conduct. Prior to joining the NAI, Anthony researched and wrote about the issues at the intersection of law and technology. He has clerked at both the NAI and the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP). Before pursuing his legal career, Anthony managed customer relations at an international travel company, where he played a key role in the transition from an offline to an online business model, focusing on data protection, web and email integration, and the implementation of an intuitive and customer friendly user interface.

He received his B.A. cum laude in Psychology from the University of Maine at Farmington, where he was a member of the Psi Chi Honor Society. Anthony earned his J.D. cum laude from the University of Maine School of Law. Anthony is a Certified Information Privacy Professional and is fluent in English, French, and Polish.

Julie Karasik

Technologist

As the Technologist at the NAI, Julie Karasik is an integral member of the compliance team. Julie works with NAI's nearly 100 member companies in integrating their opt-out mechanisms into the central NAI consumer opt-out tool. She also performs monitoring to ensure that the opt-out process is working smoothly for consumers across all participating member networks, and assists members in diagnosing and fixing any problems related to this essential function. She also directly assists consumers with opt-out issues.

Julie's wide ranging technology background makes her well-qualified to take on the responsibilities of NAI's industry-leading compliance team. Her background includes coding in JS, PHP, Perl and more. In addition, during her career, she has managed servers and databases; managed developers; and directed web design. Prior to joining NAI, Julie served as an Advisor to PLOW, a social content platform startup.

Julie received a Bachelor of Science from Cornell University, where she was pre-med before deciding to pursue her passion for technology.

William Lee

Technology & Policy Analyst

As Technology & Policy Analyst, William Lee supports the NAI’s policy initiatives and contributes to the work of NAI’s technical team. Amongst William’s responsibilities he compiles policy and other important updates for NAI members, writes for the NAI blog, contributes to policy working groups, and works on the development of the NAI’s technical monitoring tools. Having completed classes in data science, William is interested in machine learning and writes code in Python and JavaScript.

Prior to joining the NAI, William served as a policy analyst intern for the global public policy team of Access Partnership in their Washington, D.C. office, where he originally discovered his passion for both technology and policy. Originally from the UK, William received a B.A. in Geography from the University of Durham, where he completed a research project on government transport policy in South Africa.

William is CIPP/US certified.

Matthew Nichols

Senior Counsel, Compliance & Policy

As Senior Counsel, Compliance & Policy, Matthew Nichols supports the NAI's annual compliance reviews of member companies and, along with the VP of Compliance & Membership Development, leads the management of onboarding new members. In addition, Matthew supports the NAI’s international efforts to build relationships with other industry trade associations in order to promote and strengthen the value of NAI membership.

Prior to joining the NAI, Matthew worked with the Cybersecurity & Privacy team at PWC where he helped clients manage their risk by supporting the design and assessment of privacy and cybersecurity programs. This support included the implementation and review of policies, procedures, training material, and other program components, as well as the controls to support these programs. He also conducted data inventories for a variety of Fortune 500 multinational organizations and performed extensive privacy notice and contract reviews for organizations across varying sectors. While in law school, Matthew interned at the NAI, CVS (under the Chief Privacy Officer), the International Association of Privacy Professionals (IAPP), and the Future of Privacy Forum (FPF).

Matthew holds a J.D. from the University of Maine School of Law and a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Maine at Farmington. Matthew is admitted to the Massachusetts bar and is CIPP/U.S. certified.

Rod Ghaemmaghami

Counsel, Compliance & Policy

As Counsel, Compliance, Rod Ghaemmaghami conducts compliance reviews for the NAI and brings public policy knowledge and strategic policy engagement experience to the organization.

Before joining the NAI, Rod worked on the Public Policy team at Facebook focusing on privacy, supporting executives in their global policy engagement, and interfacing with international organizations. Rod’s previous experience includes working for the Senior Privacy Advisor at the White House, at Harvard University’s Berkman-Klein Center, and at the Federal Communications Commission.

Rod holds a J.D. from George Washington University Law School and a B.A. in English from University of California, Berkeley. He is admitted to the District of Columbia bar.